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Mark Goodman |
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, and the second most deadly. It will affect one in every six American men in their lifetimes. Currently, more than 2 million men in this country are living with prostate cancer, about 30,000 of whom die from the disease each year.
Early detection and staging of the disease is critical. While the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test is now used, it produces a lot of false negatives and false positives—even a urinary-tract infection can elevate these levels, or treatment can be too aggressive for a small, slow-growing tumor.
A state-of-the-art imaging agent developed by Dr. Mark Goodman, Endowed Chair in Imaging Sciences within the Department of Radiology and co-director of the Emory Center for Systems Imaging, may help to meet the need for a definitive diagnostic tool for prostate cancer and other cancers.
The Novel Tumor PET Imaging Agent consists of a physiologically active compound, which has been joined with a radioactive atom to allow tracking. Goodman’s discovery is an analog of an amino acid that is absorbed into tissues with high metabolic activity, such as tumors. The tumors then would show up clearly during Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging, which is used to diagnose and stage cancer.
Such improved imaging, says Goodman, would “allow physicians to distinguish between prostate cancer and an infection such as prostatitis without invasive and expensive biopsies.” The agent also would enable doctors to detect if the cancer has left the prostate and spread to surrounding tissues, or if the cancer has recurred in men who already have been treated.
“Another advantage is that most currently available radiolabeled amino acids tend to gather in the bladder, right above the prostate, obscuring prostate cancer on imaging. We predict from our preclinical studies that this compound will show little accumulation in the bladder,” Goodman says.
Accurate staging of prostate cancer is vital for planning the best course of treatment, and to prevent expensive yet futile treatments. A significant amount of the development and testing of this technology is taking place at Emory, says J. Cale Lennon III, assistant director of the Office of Technology Transfer--from the design, chemical synthesis, and radiolabeling of the agents to animal testing and first-in-man studies.
“I have had the pleasure to work with Dr. Goodman for quite some time now,” says Lennon, “and it has been exciting to witness this bench to bedside approach he has taken to develop this very innovative technology.”
Goodman hopes the Novel Tumor PET Imaging Agent will allow early and more accurate imaging of other cancers as well, including brain, breast, lung, and pancreatic cancers.
Techid: 08037 |
